What We Signed Up For
by CaptainFlamesandSirens
Summary: Everyone has different ways of grieving tragedy. The men and women of Firehouse 51 are no different. (I'm still getting over the first episode of season 3, so I did what everyone else is doing and wrote this! So if you haven't seen 3x01 don't read it! You have to watch the episode first! But anyways, I hope you guys like it!)


**We do a dangerous job. We all knew that when we signed up. You reach out to each other. You be there for each other. Always.**

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><p><em>God damn it, another one gone<em>, Boden thought. He had seen too many die. From accident victims, to fellow firefighters as a brother, and to his own through the eyes of a chief. Each one was more painful than the last. The latest, Leslie Shay, hurt the most. He had seen her come in, bright-eyed, fresh, and energetic, and watched her fit in with everyone, instantly. She was so full of life and she always worked to make people laugh (though she never had to work hard). She was always the person to sit next to during a meeting, because it never took her long to crack a joke and make something so boring so fun.

But some part of him was thankful. Not thankful that he lost Shay, but thankful that's all he lost. He could have lost his whole crew, his family, but he didn't. That little part of him that was thankful was cognizant enough to see through the veil of pain and to see the greater good theory in action. When the roof collapsed, the damage could have be so much worse. Though a life is a life, and just one makes a difference. Just one life gone is enough to rock a whole lotta worlds.

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><p>For Clarke, the news was awesome. Not awesome in the good way, but awesome in the shocking, devastating way. He hadn't been at 51 for very long, but that doesn't mean he wasn't touched by everyone there. He had fought through a hundred different things with them, and they had healed him in some way. He could be a different person with them, because they were family. Firefighting in general was pretty much the center of his world, but there were right there with him. The transfer killed him, because he would have to move, but he knew they would always be there for him, and him for them.<p>

He remembered a very specific time, when he tried to comfort Shay. She had witnessed someone extinguish their own life with her own eyes, and she couldn't handle it. He didn't blame her; he had seen death while serving his country and it wasn't an easy thing. He had seen death while on duty in Chicago, and that wasn't any easier. He didn't like to admit it, but he still had nightmares about it sometimes. He didn't want to see the same thing happen to Shay, who seemed to have everything together otherwise. He gave her his best advice, the advice he'd been given to help him out of the dark hole he was digging for himself. He never knew if it really helped her, but he hoped it had. It had given him solace at night, so maybe it might be the same for her.

The solace he needed now, though, was to comfort his boys at that station. He couldn't even imagine the mental anguish they were going through; two deaths in one short stretch of time and this one, would hurt too much for words. Even he, not knowing Shay as well as they had, was upset. So off he headed, reminiscing about the feisty blonde, who was taken too soon.

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><p>Casey ran his fingers through his sandy blonde hair. <em>I need a haircut,<em> he thought. He tried to think of anything but the warehouse fire. He tried to think of anything other than the life lost, and the new badge hanging on the academy wall. He tried not to think of her face, so pale, as the blood drained out of her. He tried not to think of the fact that it could have been Dawson, the love of his life, if everything had come crashing down just a minute or two before.

Be braced himself on the bathroom counter top. It's cool surface was solid, steady, so unlike he was. This house had lost too many people. This house had seen too much tragedy. He could only hope that the upcoming weeks would bring peace. He hoped that there wouldn't be many calls. Then they would have time to recuperate. They would get a new medic, a new squad lieutenant, and another squad firefighter. It hurt to even think, the house was down three warm bodies for the time being, with the rest being shaky. Unstable.

He would notice that in the coming days, everyone in the city would take pity on them and be merciful. Dispatchers chose their calls carefully, sending other houses before theirs if it was possible, and the administrators tried to keep their spirits up with special guests and tickets to sporting events. With those things they tried to hide the fact that they were also sent shrinks and chaplains to try to "talk things out". But a death in the family was not something that could just be "talked out". They would need time to heal, and even then the pain would still be there, lurking just beneath the surface, underestimated. It was like that when Darden died. It even kinda happened when Jones took her life. It would certainly happen with Shay.

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><p><em>Oh god, oh god, oh god<em>. Dawson's chest felt like it was going to split in two with every sobbing breath she took. Boden had given her the rest of the shift off, understandably. She couldn't operate when her other half (sorry Casey) was gone. And not just gone in the hospital; she knew that after staying for two hours, walking the halls numbly, like a ghost. No, she was gone forever from this Earth. This beautiful Earth she loved so much.

Shay reveled in each and everyday. Most of the time anyway, she only didn't after a bad breakup or during a certain time of the month. But she did love life, and she loved everyone in her life. She loved her job, and her new place in the bar, and the apartment she lived in with Kelly, and she loved the memories she'd shared with everyone in every part of the city she loved, Chicago. She wouldn't love them anymore. Or maybe she would from wherever she was, Dawson pondered.

Dawson both loved and hated that part of being so upset. She had been crying for so long, it seemed she was out of tears, and her thoughts wandered away from what she upset above. In this case, it was a reprieve, but a part of her _wanted_ to cry. She _wanted_ to hit or throw something. She _wanted_ to do something to get rid of all this energy and sorrow and whatever she was feeling. She really didn't want to feel. Not now, not without Shay.

Before she knew what she was doing she was in the kitchen, rooting through the cabinets for any alcohol. She pulled out every bottle from the cupboards and the fridge, well hidden for when she babysat. The island in her kitchen looked like it belonged to an alcoholic, bottles of all shapes and size and colors littered the surface. She smiled at them, a tear sliding down her cheek. Some of them had been left over from girl's weekends with her best friend, and had been sitting since then. Dawson didn't really drink anything but beer or water unless she was with Shay.

Once again, she was acting before she knew it. She had whipped her phone out and sent a text to someone else who might be needing some strong liquid medicine.

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><p>Severide's phone buzzed on the counter. His head lifted from it's spot on his own tear-soaked, jacketed arms. He too had been sent home early by Boden. It was almost a mistake on Boden's part, quite honestly. What Severide and Dawson both needed was to be at the station, with their friends. They couldn't really work in the state they were in, but they could at least stay at the station. Then again they couldn't drink at the station so… perhaps it was better that they stayed home.<p>

Severide picked up his phone, and looked to see he had gotten a text from Dawson.

_I've got a ton of alcohol and no company. Care to join me in getting wasted?_

He almost smiled. It was really what he needed. Or what he wanted, anyway. He wanted to not feel anything. He wanted to feel bullet-proof, not like he had already taken a hundred bullets. Getting wasted was the perfect remedy for all of his problems.

So he picked himself up, grabbed his jacket and car keys, and headed to a certain paramedics house.

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><p>Dawson lept up at the sound of a knock at her door. She had been staring at the partially full bottles for half an hour, resisting the urge to pick one up and drain it.<p>

"Finally, you're here," she greeted Severide. As soon as he had stepped fully into the room, she embraced him fully, completely, and for once he returned it wholeheartedly. The two of them had never been best friends, but the death of someone you really love is powerful enough to move mountains. Connecting two grieving people is well within it's power.

Dawson lead Severide to her collection of booze. He snorted, amazed by the assortment.

"Is this Shay's doing?" He asked, truly smiling for the first time in what felt like forever.

"How did you guess?" Dawson returned it.

They drank themselves until they were past drunk, not quite feeling nothing, but not quite feeling anything. They joked and shared funny, Shay-based stories. They passed the glass bottles back and forth, the cool liquid sliding down their throats and making them feel lighter and lighter by the sip.

By the time the current shift ended at the station, Casey came home to find Dawson passed out on the couch, and Severide passed out on the floor in front of her. At first, instinctively, he felt jealous, betrayed, but he didn't need to. He noticed empty bottles and paper cups and knew they had only gotten drunk together, nothing more. Well, actually, they had connected in a way that Dawson and Casey hadn't done since the accident, through the grieving of arguably the most important person in their lives, but they hadn't done anything to betray the different kind of relationship Dawson and Casey shared. And Casey was honestly, pretty relieved. His two best friends were together. They could help each other mend in ways that Casey couldn't. Not for lack of trying, but because he hadn't know Shay as well as they had.

That night, they all learned an important lesson. When they were training at the academy, they knew they committing themselves to long hours, hard work, and seeing others on the worst days of their life. They also knew on some level that they were also committing themselves when they joined the brotherhood, and that they might lose brothers along the way. But they didn't fully _know_ it until Shay's death, when it struck everyone harder than anything else they had been faced with on the job. But this is what they signed up for.

All of it.

_Always._


End file.
